Today I experienced the most troublesomely frustrating mat exercise. For some days I’d been planning my routine but, when it came to it, the mat nearly floored me. The mat, about 1½” thick, comprised of multifarious roots, had linked three baskets of rushes and other marginal plants into inseparable triplets.

The rushes anchored to the outside of the planters seemed to have a greater vitality than the overcrowded inhabitants of their primary dwelling place. The aquatic planters themselves, although weighted down with granite chips, aquatic compost and a deep gravel dressing, had themselves been elevated from the marginal shelf of the pond by the dense tangle of roots. My exercise time proved to be not a moment too soon.

The preparation of the new, larger planters, took far less effort than the hacking away with scissors, shears, knife and spade, to release the subjects due for transplant. The effort of the entire garden planting and transplanting, of the past few weeks, seemed like child’s play in comparison to this modest task.